Powergen/ Eon

smb1978

Hi

I am a newbie to this however someone mentioned that this forum might be able to help me with my current situation.

I completed on my property on 20th September 2006 and and moved in January/February 2007. At this point I noticed that the energy bill was coming in the previous tenants name who was a Mrs J Bourne. I wrote to your Powergen and explained that I would be the new occupier of the property and if they could send in my name moving forward.

I did not hear anything back and the letters for Mrs Bourne stopped as well in this time. I work constantly away and my partner and 18 month old child stay at the property.

My wife informed me of a letter that came through the door from Siemens saying that this still was not paid at which point I made a phone call to Powergenand spoke to a warrants advisor. I explained the situation and she said that Powergen cwould be able to recalculate my bill if I sent in the completion papers from the solicitors which I did in due course.

By the 24th December I still hadnt heard anything or received anything by post so I sent another letter to powergen in Nottingham outlining this. In the meantime we had to go to the Middle East for a funeral as my Father had passed away.

On returning from the Middle East on Saturday 12th January 2008 i found that my electrcity had been cut off. All the food in the freezer had to be thrown away and we have had no heating or lighting for two days.

I phoned up Powergen this morning and was told that neither email or letter had been received but I hadnt had an undeliverable email. I explained the situation to Alex in the warrants team and he asked for the documents which I resent AGAIN.

He confirmed receipt and stated that it will take another 48 hours for my service to be resumed. This means that I am now living in my property with my 18 month old daughter with no heating or lighting.

Can someone please advise me what my options are in this scenario?

Bandini1971

E-on??? I think the marketing department made a typo - Aeon is more apt: cos that is how long they take to sort anything out! In three words? Inept, rude, expensive.

Hmmmm! I can't be very helpful about your particular case, but I can say that in my experience, they are very 'sharky' - I was quite shocked at our treatment recently:

Back in 2006 we had a bill that was about £800 (sorry exact details not to hand and I am too tired to go routing) it was eventually sorted out, aftyer lots of hassle and time, and the real bill was about £100, but we also queried our Gas and did not get a bill until THIS NOVEMBER! It was almost £1020 for 7 months and our monthly DD based on their estimate was £35! Anyhow, thought it semed a lot, we are both very busy and tired, and we had used more than our normal amount of gas that year due to partner being at Uni and so at home a lot, so we said OK. They then demanded all of the money right away, and when I said that I could not pay, and pointed out that they had caused us lots of hassle and blah, blah blah the operator asked what I proposed to do.

I offfered, and the guy refused £45 and eventually haggled me to £85 a month - it would skint us, but OK I said. He said that he would just go to OK it with his manager. Came back and said, No, they had to have more.

To cut a long story short, I talked up to his jumped up little **** of a manager, who seemed to take great delight in his role, and said that he was sorry but they could only take that 'little'(!) in special circumstances. I reminded him that he knew nothing of my circumstances, and said that for all he knew I might qualify. I asked him waht the policy on 'special circumstances' was, and he mumbled something about 'old ladies.' In the end I could stand his iritating manner no more and hung up.

I called, hoping to get a non ****** operator, and spoke to someone else who called straight through to this same manager and gave me the same spiel.I asked her for the policy on what circumstances enabled someone to strike a deal and she said that she would send them - of course she didn't. All of the people I spoke to said that we could have longer to pay if we wnet back to them. Errrr...no ta!

Throughout these exchanges there was a real sense that this was a bunch of cowboys making it up as they went along.

Anyhoooo - coming up to Christmas so decided to wait for the reminder and deal with it in the New Year - remember this WAS THE FIRST ACCURATE BILL!

The other day we got a letter from Moorcroft Debt Collection demanding payment and tonight they rang us up. After initially demanding immediate full payment as the debt had been 'outstanding since 2006', they seemed surprised we were keen to pay, and seemed to presume we had refused to pay. When we explained, they soon let us make an arrangement to pay to pay £50 a month. £35 a month less than **** pot had refused.

I know from searching the web that Powergen.e-on they have had problems with customer service in the past - they are HOPELESS now - completely disdainful and unprofessional. I also knwo that there have been myriad problems with inaccurate billing.

We are now with Atlantic who reassess DD every 3 months - to avoid this kind of debacle I imagine. I called to give a meter reading and spoke to a lovely, helpful customer services person about another issue. MILES DIFFERENT AND LOTS CHEAPER IT SEEMS!

My advice - swap suppliers ASAP and tell everyone you know to avoid AEON like the plague.

Cardew

Welcome to the Forum.

I would phone energywatch tomorrow:

http://www.energywatch.org.uk/

Obviously the first thing is to get power on as soon as possible; could a neighbour plug in an extension lead? You can worry about who was at fault later.

From your post it would appear that you haven't paid a bill in the 16 months you have owned the property and that puts you in a weak position. With hindsight you should have insisted a temporary account was opened in your name.

Terrylw1

Call Energywatch, their normal hours contact number will be on the link Cardew provided.

They have the right to request a warrant to enter your property to do things like this without you even being there. However it could be likely that they have just pulled the fuses if the meter is outside due to them seeing it as long term vacant.

To consider it long term vacant though they would also need to have no record of moving consumption. The engineers also look for signs as to whether there is an occupant becaue unless it's a warrant job, they won't pull fuses if they believe you are in there.

You have contact them to make them aware of the situation and have succeeded in stopping bills and debt collection letters but it seems they have just not received the docs to set you up.

I can't see why they can't get someone there tomorrow as an emergency job but then sometimes the Meter Operators are fully booked. Sometimes a Supplier can opt to pay for an out of hours call though in these situations.

Call Energywatch as they can contact your Supplier and see if they can do this. The fact that you have a small child will encourage them to try and help you.